Historic deal
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Effective January 1, 2008 all exports in goods (with the temporary exception of rice and sugar) and services originating from within the Cariforum group will be entitled to duty-free and quota-free access in Europe.
This follows the conclusion of the first-ever Economic Partnership Agreement (EPA) with the European Union (EU) between the Caribbean’s team of negotiators and their European counterparts.
After three-and-a-half years of arduous and intense negotiations, which opened in Jamaica in April 2004, both sides completed their massive task around 1:30 yesterday morning at the Hilton Hotel here.
The sleepy-eyed, exhausted negotiators emerged to report the good news the entire Cariforum group of countries (Caricom and the Dominican Republic) had been waiting for.
One of the major sticking points in the negotiations on services – non-discriminatory access with respect to the region’s culture industries, including the performing arts and writers – was also overcome with a commitment offered by 25 of the EU’s 27 member states.
Officials of the Caribbean Regional Negotiating Machinery (CRNM) later told the Observer that what makes this development all the more significant is the fact that the Caribbean has emerged as the first of six regions of the African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to achieve such an EPA arrangement with the EU’s executive arm, the European Commission.
Caricom leaders, among them Prime Minister Bruce Golding, who have been pressing for “the best possible deal” to be reached with the EU – whether on an interim or full EPA package of trade and economic development arrangements – were being officially informed from early yesterday morning of the breakthrough in the negotiations.
When Caricom leaders met for a special summit in Guyana on December 7, they reaffirmed the mandate to the region’s negotiators to conclude the most beneficial and complete accord possible in preference to securing an interim market access arrangement to meet a scheduled December 31, 2007 deadline, as proposed by the EC.
By 2010, rice and sugar, among vital exports and foreign exchange earnings for some Caribbean states – among them Guyana, Belize and Suriname – will also be eligible to duty-free and quota-free access to Europe’s markets.
With respect to Caribbean sugar exports, a deal was reportedly reached whereby Caricom sugar producers will gain an additional 30,000 tons to current allocations while the Dominican Republic is to benefit from a separate 30,000 tons access.
Another significant agreement reached in the closing rounds of the final negotiations was the concessions gained for Haiti and The Bahamas to access the services protocol of the EPA with the understanding that they fulfil relevant requirements over the next six months.
A report on the EPA arrangements concluded here in Barbados at the weekend is to be submitted to a meeting of the EU Council on Thursday for the “insertion of the 15 Cariforum countries in the European Commission’s regulations to permit unhindered access to Europe’s market from New Year’s Day 2008”.
Arrangements are already under way for the formal signing of the historic “partnership” accord between the EU and the 78-member ACP that will eventually replace the Cotonou Convention.